


Rita

by EldritchSandwich



Category: Matilda (1996), Matilda - Roald Dahl
Genre: Blushing, Butch/Femme, F/F, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Fluffy Sandwich, Happy Ending, Post-Canon, Post-Movie(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchSandwich/pseuds/EldritchSandwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Honey and Matilda are enjoying life as a happy family, but there's still something missing. At least until a new face unexpectedly walks into their life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rita

**Author's Note:**

> For those keeping track, this is set in the universe of the film version, so the setting is broadly American and Matilda still has her powers.

The ending of the preceding story explains that Matilda and Miss Honey lived happily ever after, both finally in possession of a real, loving family. And while this is technically true, the real truth is, as is usually the case, very slightly more complicated.

It all began one night in the big house. It was a stormy, rainy night, and Matilda and her adoptive mother were doing what they usually did on such nights (and most others): reading. Matilda was reading Shakespeare and frowning as if there were something she wanted to discuss, while Jennifer was reading Joyce and about to ask Matilda what was wrong as an excuse to stop reading Joyce. Just as she opened her mouth, a gigantic peal of thunder shook the foundations of the house, and every light in the living room went black.

The sudden shock was enough to make the normally implacable eight year old squeak, and her perpetually nervous guardian squeak much louder.

"What was that?" Matilda was looking around the darkened house with the combination of curiosity and measured concern she preferred to fear.

"Probably just a blown fuse," Miss Honey said with something closer to the genuine article.

"Where's the fuse box?"

"The basement."

"Well, I'll go take a look," said Matilda who, unlike her guardian, wasn't at all afraid of the dark.

"Oh, no, Matilda, I..." Miss Honey's hand dropped with a faint sigh as Matilda picked up the flashlight hanging at the top of the basement stairs. "Be careful!"

Miss Honey sat, nervously jiggling her hands in her lap, acutely aware that she was sitting in a house that until very recently had been haunted by the specter of her monstrous aunt, a house that until very recently had lived in her mind primarily as the setting to every single one of the worst moments of her life so that even now she felt as if and she practically jumped out of her seat as the lights ringing the upstairs landing came back on.

"Is that better?"

Matilda's small face poked out of the black basement, looked from the lighted stairs to the still-black parlor to her sheepish-looking guardian, then pulled itself down into a frown.

Miss Honey cleared her throat as she stood. "Oh dear. I think we'll have to call an electrician."

Matilda looked around the parlor. "Isn't the telephone down here?"

Miss Honey cleared her throat again. "Ah."

* * *

It was summer—the beginning of July, to be precise—which meant Jennifer was working in the back gardens and Matilda was reading in the parlor the next day when there was a knock at the door. As such it was Matilda who opened the door to find a pair of long, solid legs covered in blue jeans and work boots. She tilted her head up and revealed a tool belt, a plaid shirt, and a handsome and somewhat surprised face looking back down at her.

The face belonged to a woman, and the woman was scratching the back of her short, shaggy black hair. "Uh, hello."

"Hello."

"Did your, uh...mother call for an electrician?" Matilda nodded, and the woman's shoulders relaxed markedly. "Okay. I'm Rita Evangeline. Evangeline Electrics."

"I'm Matilda Honey. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Evangeline."

"Uh, thanks, you can call me Rita." Matilda nodded, and the electrician cleared her throat. "Is she here? Or...your dad?"

"She's in the garden. But I can show you where the problem is."

"Uh, okay. Great."

The woman padded behind Matilda, eyes idly scanning the light fixtures and in the process taking in the rest of the house. "So...is your dad at work?"

"Actually, he's either in Guam with my mother and my older brother, or more likely in prison for fraud." The electrician's boots creaked to a stop on the wood floor, and when Matilda turned around the woman had the most awkward look on her face the girl had ever seen.

"Oh. I, uh...sorry, I thought you said your mother was..."

"Miss Honey's my adoptive mother. But believe me, she's much better than the alternative."

The tall woman gave her a weird, uneasy smile. "You're...a really clever girl, aren't you?"

Matilda gave a satisfied nod. "Uh-huh. This way."

Matilda explained the events surrounding the power outage as best she could, which was to say better than most engineers could. As the electrician pulled a flashlight and a screwdriver from her belt, Matilda took a step back.

"I hope I'm not being rude, but would you mind if I watched you work? I've always found electrical engineering fascinating, but I haven't been able to find many good books on it."

The electrician gave her the charmed, mystified smile that adults often did when they began to appreciate just who they were dealing with in Matilda. "Uh, sure. Be my guest."

Matilda smiled. "Thank you. You won't even know I'm here."

* * *

Over the course of the next hour, Rita examined the fuse box, the various misbehaving light fixtures, and as much of the wiring as she could without tearing open the walls, all while Matilda watched and interjected with the occasional question. When Rita remarked that by now Matilda probably knew enough to fix the wiring herself, the girl beamed.

"I'd never dream of putting you out of a job. I promise." Rita laughed.

The electrician had her head buried in a pewter fixture when the back doors opened, so Matilda unfurled herself from her chair to greet her adoptive mother. "Miss Honey, the electrician's here."

"Thank you, dear." Jennifer stepped up behind the tall, muscular figure stretching to reach inside the light fixture and cleared her throat. "E...excuse me, sir?"

Rita pulled back and looked down with a smirk. "Be with you in just a moment, my good man."

Jennifer's eyes went wide. "Oh dear! I...I'm so sorry, I didn't..."

Rita grinned as she climbed down from the stepstool. "Yeah, well, as you can imagine it's never happened before, so I'm terribly offended."

Jennifer felt her cheeks heat up as the woman just kept smiling at her and leaned against the wall. "Now then. What did you want to ask me, Missus...?"

"Honey. Jennifer Honey. And it's Miss," she amended hurriedly, and it made the woman smile wider.

"Rita Evangeline. Pleasure to meet you, Jennifer Honey."

Jennifer's cheeks went a little pinker at the way the woman purred her name. "I...I was just going to ask how you were...whether you had any questions," she mumbled, and since her eyes were still cast down, she never saw the woman grin at her awkwardness.

"A few. This has got to be one of the oldest houses I've ever worked on...do you know if it's had any work done since they first wired it for electricity?"

Jennifer cleared her throat, her burning cheeks grateful for the change of topic. "Oh, I...I don't think so. Matilda and I tried to fix things up when we moved in, but my...the woman who lived here before us, she...didn't like having other people poking around her home."

The electrician nodded as if it was what she was expecting to hear. "Well...I can fix the short, but it's only a matter of time before this happens again. The wiring in this house is just so old."

"I see. What, um...what should we do?"

Rita scratched the back of her head with a thoughtful look. "Well...what you should really do is rewire everything, but there's no way to do that without tearing up all these beautiful walls. For now I'll replace the connections here where the short was, and you can call me if anything happens again. If it does, I'd ideally want to redo all the fixtures and switches, just to be safe, but that would probably run into money."

"Money's no object, Miss Evangeline, I assure you."

Rita grinned down at her. "Oh, Miss Honey, never say that to a contractor. Now you'll never be able to get rid of me."

Jennifer Honey was still blushing, but she was also smiling.

* * *

Life in the big house went on as normal for the next eight days, eight days in which Matilda couldn't help noticing that her adoptive mother seemed the slightest bit distracted. On the morning of the ninth day, however, Jennifer tried to turn on the kitchen light to get started on breakfast, and the refrigerator shuddered to a stop.

"Just couldn't let me enjoy my vacation, could you?" Rita grunted from behind the refrigerator. When Jennifer started to sputter, the electrician leaned out from behind the appliance with a joking smile, and Jennifer blushed. Rita chuckled as she stepped back out into the kitchen, wiping her hands and taking the opportunity to look around the spacious, old-fashioned kitchen. "So I'm curious, Miss Honey, how does a single woman afford a place like this? Do you work?"

Miss Honey smiled proudly. "Well, the house was my father's. But actually, I'm the principal of the Crunchem Hall School."

Rita's eyebrows went up. "What? I heard the principal there was some sadistic old battleaxe, that can't be you, you're..."

Miss Honey cocked her head curiously as Rita trailed off. "What?"

Rita grinned. "Gorgeous." The pretty young teacher's cheeks lit up and her eyes dropped to the kitchen floor. She let out a heavy breath as Rita turned to dig through her toolbox. "I hope I didn't offend you, Miss Honey."

She cleared her throat. "No, of course not. I suppose I'm just not used to receiving compliments, but it was very...kind of you to say. I mean...I'm very flattered. And of course, you're really quite...I mean..." When her eyes flitted up, Rita was grinning again.

"I meant with the question."

* * *

And so Rita worked, rewiring fixtures and baseplates and doing everything she could to modernize the old house without tearing it down. Matilda was almost always with her, since discussing a topic that fascinated her was even better than reading about it, listening to the woman talk about the insulative properties of various materials, the physics of electricity, and other topics that seemed more scientific than an electrician would have need of. When Matilda brought that up on Rita's third visit, the electrician smiled wistfully.

"Well, I didn't always want to be an electrician. Actually...when I was younger I wanted to become a scientist. Or an engineer. Invent things, make discoveries."

"Why didn't you?"

Rita frowned. "I would have had to go to college. My father didn't think girls should go to college."

Matilda frowned too. "You're lucky." Rita's eyebrows rose. "My father didn't think anyone should go to college."

Rita met her eyes with an understanding smile. "Well. I'd say everything worked out all right for both of us." Matilda smiled back. Rita worked in silence for a few minutes longer, then cleared her throat and turned back to her diminutive apprentice. "Could I...ask you something? About...your mother?"

Matilda nodded. "Of course."

Rita licked her lips, hand scratching idly at the back of her head like it had when they'd first met. "Does she have...I mean, a woman as rich and beautiful as her must have lots of men sniffing around after her."

Matilda frowned. "I don't think so. If she does she never says anything. Our lives are pretty quiet."

Rita frowned too. It obviously wasn't the answer she was expecting. "Oh."

"I asked her once, and she said that she didn't think she was the kind of woman who got married."

Rita chuckled to herself. "Now that I definitely understand," she muttered under her breath.

* * *

Over the following weeks, as Rita worked her way from the ground floor of the house on up, she grew more and more a feature of everyday life. Not that she was there every day, of course, but her easy presence in the house somehow made it seem as if she was. Matilda was almost always with her, of course, talking about science and engineering and eventually literature—Rita, it turned out, had a soft spot for the Arthurian romances—but as time wore on, Jennifer also spent more time hovering around while Rita worked. She was awkward about it at first, making up excuses about offering Rita something to eat or drink or being on hand to answer questions about the house, but when Rita's wide smile and affectionate glances made it clear her presence wasn't an inconvenience they simply began to chat.

"You sure spend an awful lot of time out in that garden," Rita observed as she was finishing up the day's work. Jennifer pursed her lips with a slight blush; whenever Rita's words—or roguish smile, or casual touch of her arm—flustered her, going to work in the garden had become her usual reason to excuse herself. "It must really be something by now."

Jennifer started to dissemble, only for Matilda to smile broadly. "Miss Honey, you should take her out to see it."

Jennifer's eyes widened, then flicked up to Rita to find her grinning. "I'd love to see it."

Jennifer cleared her throat. "Well, I...I suppose. If you're...interested."

Rita's smile widened. "Oh, I'm definitely interested."

* * *

The front garden, which Rita had seen time and time again on her way into the house, was more or less traditional; orderly flower beds, proper little trees, and a well-maintained lawn that would have been the envy of the neighbors if they'd had any. The back garden, however...well, Jennifer Honey was still a romantic little girl at heart. And every romantic little girl wanted an enchanted forest.

They walked slowly around the perimeter of the trees that stretched on behind the house, past clusters of undergrowth and countless varieties of flowers that Rita would have sworn had sprung up by themselves if she hadn't known better. She let Jennifer walk a step ahead, smiling at the way she brushed her fingers against leaves and blossoms as she went, as if she were greeting them. "You have an enchanting presence, Miss Honey, if you don't mind my saying."

Jennifer stopped, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly. "Oh. I...thank you."

Now that she was no longer walking, fingers paused on the head of a snapdragon, Rita stepped around Jennifer so she could try to find her eyes. "Could I ask you a question, Jennifer Honey?"

Jennifer swallowed. "Of...of course."

"Have you never wanted a man to share all this with? A husband?"

Jennifer swallowed again. "Oh. I..." She took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering shut. "I don't think I'm the type," she said simply. With her eyes closed she didn't see Rita smile, didn't notice her hand until the work-roughened pads of her fingers were brushing against the backs of hers. Jennifer's eyes shot open again to find Rita looking down at her, eyes big and open and unmistakable.

"I think maybe you and I have that in common," Rita murmured, fingertips gently stroking the back of Jennifer's hand. "I think maybe you and I have a lot in common."

Jennifer licked her quivering lips. "I...I think...maybe..."

When she couldn't finish, Rita tipped her head down halfway. Jennifer's rushed up to meet it.

The kiss was short, tentative, quiet, perfectly at home amidst the gentle peace of the garden. Jennifer was the one who finally pulled back, letting out an unsteady shudder as Rita's free hand rose to her face, her callused thumb tracing the outline of her lips. Rita grinned.

"Jennifer Honey. Ain't that the truth."

Jennifer turned her hand from the snapdragon to let Rita take it, and pushed up onto her toes for another kiss.

* * *

"Are you all right, Miss Honey?"

Jennifer shook her head. It had been a week since the kiss, and things with Rita had been—Jennifer tried not to blush—proceeding apace. She'd come by twice as many times this week as last week, and the lunch break that had previously consisted of Jennifer offering her a sandwich and some tea had now turned into full-on picnics in the garden: twice with Matilda...once, just the two of them.

Jennifer cleared her throat. "Matilda." Matilda looked up from her book. Adam Smith of all things; they were going to have to head to the library to find some more fiction. She put that aside for now. "Could we talk about something? Something important?"

Matilda closed her book and set it on the arm of her chair. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Jennifer hurried to reassure her. "Not...wrong, not really. I mean...there are certain people who might...that's not the point." Matilda blinked, lost but waiting patiently. "Do you remember how in Twelfth Night, Olivia...no, that's not really...what I mean is, sometimes you discover things about...yourself, or about other people. Or, not discover. Sometimes there's something you've known about yourself for a long time, but you never thought it was a part of yourself you'd get to...and then, it's like science, you find evidence that challenges your beliefs, and you have to think about whether your life...the way you've been living is really...do you understand what I'm saying?"

Matilda blinked again. "No." Jennifer frowned, and Matilda shrugged. "At first I thought we were talking about you and Rita, but now I really don't know."

Jennifer's eyes went wide. "You...how did you..."

Matilda shrugged again. "I thought it was obvious," she said simply, and of course it was. Jennifer flushed and began to babble, but Matilda shook her head. "It's okay, Miss Honey. According to the Kinsey Reports I read in your father's library, that kind of thing happens all the time," Matilda intoned sagely. Jennifer hadn't thought her eyes could get any wider.

"Kinsey...oh dear, Matilda—"

"Are you and Rita in love?"

Jennifer's babbling stopped. "I...I don't know yet."

"Does she make you happy?"

Jennifer's eyes narrowed, a faint smile running across her lips. "Yes. Yes, she does."

"I like Rita. And I want you to be happy, Miss Honey," Matilda said, as if that settled the matter for good. Which, Jennifer supposed, it probably did.

"Thank you, Matilda."

"I'm just glad I don't have to feel guilty any more."

Jennifer blinked. "Guilty? For what, dear?"

Matilda looked back up from her book with a wince. "After I saw you two together the first time she was here...there's a strong possibility I might have used my powers to loosen the wires in the kitchen."

Jennifer Honey blinked. Then she leaned back in her chair, dropped her head into her hands, and began to laugh.


End file.
